Flanked by more than a dozen motorcycles, the Reverend Alford Sharpton led a procession yesterday through the quiet streets of Howard Beach in protest of an alleged hate crime that occurred there last week.

Police and prosecutors have said a white Howard Beach resident, Nicholas Minucci, 19, used racial slurs and wielded an aluminum baseball bat to hit a black man, Glenn Moore, in an early morning altercation last Wednesday. Mr. Moore, 22, suffered a fractured skull.

The beating occurred just blocks from the site of a 1986 hate crime, in which a group of white teenagers chased and beat several black men. One victim, Michael Griffith, after fleeing onto the Belt Parkway to escape, was struck and killed by a car. In the aftermath, Rev. Sharpton marshaled thousands of people to protest. Yesterday he addressed about 30 sympathizers.

“Howard Beach has an opportunity to reinvent itself by how they respond to what was done to Glenn Moore,” Rev. Sharpton said. “We have shown, as we did 19 years ago, our willingness to stand up against racism. The question is how they will stand up.”

The protest began outside Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where Mr. Moore is recovering from intracranial bleeding. Protesters traveled by car from the hospital to the intersection of Linden Boulevard and North Conduit Avenue, near where Mr. Moore’s home. From there, the motorcade drove 10 blocks east, to the site of the attack.

Rev. Sharpton said Mr. Moore’s mother and stepfather, Chaundra and Thomas Eison, called for the protest to show that the young man was a resident of the neighborhood in which he was attacked. Defenders of Minucci and the other man charged in the case, his friend Anthony Ench, have portrayed Mr. Moore as an outsider.

Mr. Eison is a member of the Young Yahme Riders, a group that aims to keep inner-city teenagers off the streets by teaching them motorcycle safety. Members of the organization led the procession on their bikes, blocking off cross streets and running red lights so that the group could stay together.

Rev. Sharpton was accompanied by a City Council member from Brooklyn, Charles Barron; one from Queens, Leroy Comrie; and the pastor of the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in Brooklyn, the Reverend Herbert Daughtry. In front of a Rite Aid at an intersection near Mr. Moore’s home, Rev. Sharpton spoke of the paradox of a protest on the Fourth of July.

“The irony is … as people are celebrating what you call American freedom, does this extend to people like Glenn?” Rev. Sharpton asked.

As the line of cars crawled through the tree-lined streets of Howard Beach, residents, most of them white, leaned over balconies and peered through windows, eyeing the crowd. Wearing bathing suits and munching on hot dogs, children gathered on manicured front lawns and stared at Rev. Sharpton.

Several members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People rode in the procession, and many spoke disparagingly about Howard Beach. The Democratic leader for the 29th Assembly District, which includes Forest Hills and Kew Gardens, Elmer Blackburne, called Howard Beach “the city’s dirty little secret” and a “segregated enclave.”

As protesters condemned Howard Beach, area residents defended the character of their neighborhood. They said Minucci and Mr. Ench acted in self-defense. According to the authorities, Minucci said in a written confession that Mr. Moore attempted to rob him before the beating, leading him to retaliate. Police also said they were told by a friend of Mr. Moore’s that the blacks were in the neighborhood to steal a car.

One Howard Beach woman, Elizabeth Iorio, 23, said most Howard Beach people believe Minucci rightfully protected his neighborhood from potentially dangerous individuals.

“They were going to rob a car. If they were going to rob your car, you would do something,” Ms. Iorio, who wore a shirt that read “Free Ench,” said.

“It’s not racist, it’s just a safety issue,” she said.

After watching Rev. Sharpton speak from the sidewalk, Nicholas Bonina burst into the middle of the street to defend Minucci, who he said was like a brother to him.

“I’m sick and tired of what has been accused, that it was a racial thing, because we live in Howard Beach. Howard Beach, if you look around, there are blacks living up the block. I have black friends. It doesn’t matter. Spanish, black, every nationality you can imagine.” Mr. Bonina said. “Get it right. It’s self-defense.”

Despite those comments, the president of the NAACP in New York State, Hazel Dukes, said the reaction to the protest was a marked improvement from 1986. “It’s not the same open hostility we met 20 years ago,” she said.